


Pierce The Veil

by elizabethgraem



Series: Stony Songs [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M, expect nothing else, honestly this entire book will be depressing as hell, it's based off of pierce the veil songs so...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-26
Updated: 2016-03-25
Packaged: 2018-05-29 03:22:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,375
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6356905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elizabethgraem/pseuds/elizabethgraem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Tony's parents may have been shitty, but that doesn't mean he can handle it when they die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pierce The Veil

**Author's Note:**

> Look to the end of each chapter for the lyrics of the song that the chapter belongs to.
> 
> Each chapter's storyline is unrelated to all others, unless otherwise stated.

"Kid, get out of the way." Doctors rushed past Tony once again, charging into his mother's room as the heart monitor beeped incessantly, a noise that Tony didn't think was ever going to leave his head at this point. The first three times it had happened, he covered his ears and shut his eyes, hoping that he might be able to take himself away from here, Now his face remained blank and he didn't move, allowing himself to be pushed aside by the doctors. His face held nothing but dread and grief as he slowly came to himself, the slow motion picture before him finally speeding up again, the sound of the beeping barely distinguishable from how he'd been constantly hearing it in his head.

He left the room.

As he walked through the busy hallways, he thought of the last conversation he'd had with his parents, just before they got into the car that had just exploded.

_"Anthony, you need to get your life together! 21 years old and what? Two masters? And what have you done since then." The last phrase came out as a statement, entirely rhetorical, as both men knew that the answer Howard was looking for was "nothing." Still, Tony tried to argue._

_"Exactly, you wouldn't know! You wouldn't know because you're never fucking here!"_

_"Anthony, do not use that tone with me!" Howard exclaimed, raising his arm. Tony didn't even flinch, practically asking for his father to hit him, so use to it that it hardly hurt. He'd rather have his dad hitting him than telling him how much of a failure he was anyway, so if he had to choose..._

_"Howard..." Maria Stark rarely stepped in, rarely stopped her husband from hitting Tony. Whenever she did, Tony almost wanted to laugh. A sardonic, repulsed sneer always came to his face. He knew she was a coward. He knew she was a self-centered bitch. The only reason she would step in was in case she and Howard were going to a gala or event of some sort. She always worried about appearance and a disheveled look at a conference such as the one they were about to attend... Well, that would be just_ horrible _._

_Howard slowly lowered his arm and clear his throat before sending Tony one of his "you'll get it later" smirks, which was just a quick upward twitch of his lips. Tony wasn't too worried. He'd be so drnk by then he might not even feel it until he woke up sore in the morning. Howard turned to Maria, pulling at his tux in order to straighten it and allowed her to adjust his now skewed tie._

_Before his parent were even out the door, Tony was on his way to the liquor cabinet._

_"Try doing something with your life while we're gone!" Howard yelled._

_"Unlikely!" Tony responded, the door slamming shut immediately after._ If I did that _Tony thought_ I'd have won some sort of metal by now _._

_He took a seat on the couch, a bottle of vodka resting in one hand, two more on the floor a his feet. Just in case he got that far. The first he'd gotten so far was about a bottle and two thirds before ending up in the hospital, but records were made to be broken._

_The news droned on before him, some blonde chick (totally bangable) standing on a street corner broadcasting some story about some "good person." What a joke. There weren't good people. There were honest people and there were people that acted, as though maybe some idiot might actually believe that they were doing anything for the betterment of humanity. Tony knew otherwise. He might be stupid, but he wasn't quite so stupid as to believe that somebody would actually help anyone other than himself._

_Then, there was screaming and nothing was comprehensible because the camera just showed fire and panic and smoke and_ what on earth happened? __

_He stopped drinking and listened, his previously slightly foggy head now clear as a bell._

_"...Howard and Maria Stark. The collision appears to have set off an explosion from the gas tanks of the two cars. No one from either car has yet been seen."_

-

Days. It'd been days since he stepped out of his father's workshop. He couldn't do anything but stare at the tools, the awards, the projects.

Well, the ones that weren't broken anyway.

Tony was completely willing to admit that the "anger" phase of his grief had hit long and hard. In fact, he still wasn't over it, the only thing keeping him from throwing any and everything being the fact that he was drunk off his ass right now and if he moved, he might throw up. Or pass out. Or both, but he really didn't feel like face planting in his own vomit.

Phone calls came in from friends, from his father's, _his_ , coworkers. 21, still so young, and in charge of his father's greatest success. Oh well, he'd find someone to take his place soon enough. Probably Obie, who'd been by his father's side almost the entire time.

Between the alcohol and the busy mind, constantly running in 200 different directions and 200 miles a minute, he could't help but find blame and, after 21 years of being to blame, he found it only in himself. He had been the cause of their leaving later. Maybe, with just that minute or two that Howard had spent yelling at him, they would have hit a different light, or they would've been past that intersection when the other driver ran his red light.

He was toxic, ruining absolutely everything and everyone, including his own parents.

He wouldn't remember anything later. Wouldn't remember the drunken hours he spent in the hospital beside his mother's bed, begging her not to leave him alone. He'd thought he'd been alone his entire life, but that hadn't been true. He'd been lonely, but not alone, and there were seldom times when his mother might make him laugh, even less times when his father might. Now he was well and truly alone and he just wanted her back. He'd take any word from Maria, any hit from Howard, just to have one of them back. His father had died immediately, so that wasn't happening, but his mother was still holding one. She could make it. Despite the times he'd wake up to her screaming in pain, the medication fading and the burns still searing her skin. Until she stopped waking up.

He wouldn't remember the funeral either, or the drunken speech he made for them both. He'd said that his dad, though he had't been there, had been his inspiration, his rive to one day figure out how to make something of himself, to not be a failure. His mother had been his childhood hero, the one that was there too shut him up when he was being stupid and make him into a better person. He had loved them both, didn't want them gone. He wouldn't remember himself saying that they would be missed, although that one was just because he hadn't.

All he would remember was the fact that it was all his fault, maybe because that seemed the default thought for his mind, drunk or sober. Weeks later he would start going out in public again, trying to better his appearance (although he knows it still wouldn't have been good enough for his mother). It was all just a disguise though, his misery and guilt masked by this playboy, arrogant persona he put on as a show. He knew he'd killed them, he knew it was his fault that they were dead, he knew that his father's workshop shouldn't be his, shouldn't be called his home, would never been called his home.

Still though, he brought himself out of the ashes (at least, in the public eye he did) and made himself into something more, something his father might almost be proud of, if it weren't for all of the fuck ups he made.

He brought himself to be more, to be Iron Man.

(Really though, he was just a scared kid who'd killed his parents. That was all he'd ever be, right?)

**Author's Note:**

> If you wanted to set me free  
> Why the fuck couldn't you say something?  
> See, I was just over seventeen  
> Made of poison, cave in free
> 
> Oh no, please, don't abandon me  
> Mother, father, I love you so  
> But this is just me disguised as me  
> I'm the killer who burned your home
> 
> This home  
> Why the fuck is this home?
> 
> This is the street youth rising...


End file.
